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Published works on PreBabel (Chinese)
Day thirty-seven -- Published works on PreBabel (Chinese). Question -- from "sangi39" -- As a final critique of your work, though, (following the structure of other critiques I have read and written) ... ... rather than a constructed purely ideographic script as suggested by you and as a final critique of your work (which I have already stated) I cannot at the moment favour your work since it projects a "find" in the traditional Chinese characters in use today projected onto the past and creation of those characters and is in essence based on perceived negative evidence and an apparent lack of reading in regards to other ideas. I have read through your online work and I find it disjointed and lacking in consideration for other ideas and evidence, concentrating solely on the presentation of your own ideas stating other ideas in one vast sweep as simply wrong straight off with very little explanation as to why. Answer -- My work, which work? I done a lot of works, physics, mathematics, poetry, translation of Laotze, translation of Yijing, PreBabel, etc.. If you are talking about the "Chinese Etymology," I wrote three books, Book 1: "Chinese Word Roots and Grammar" (in simplified Chinese, 300 pages, 10 chapters, 4 appendixes) which discusses: general and comparative linguistics, the history and the historical writings on Chinese etymology, the critic of those works, the introduction of Chinese word roots, the rules and the growth of Chinese character system, the phonetics of Chinese characters and its history, the interaction of phonetic laws and semantic laws which gives the meaning and the sound of each character, the examples of those interaction and laws, the axiomatic linguistic systems (English and Chinese), the comparison between the two axiom systems, the grammar of English and the grammar of Chinese, etc.. Note: the phonetic and semantic interaction of character accounts over half of the book. Book 2: "Chinese Etymology" (in English, 326 pages, intended as a textbook for American kid who knows not a single Chinese at the beginning) which has three Lessons and one character list (about 8,000 words). + Lesson 1: 220 root words, 1100 G1 (generation 1) words and about 1,000 higher generation words. + Lesson 2: 300 sound modules, 250 four-tones and about 3,000 descendent words of those sound modules. + Lesson 3: very briefly describes the theory of Chinese Etymology, 50 variants of the roots and the exceptions from the general rules. + Word list: lists about 8,000 words under the roots, the genealogy, the ways of their dissection pathway, etc.. Note: as a textbook for a beginner, it contains only about 10% the etymology theory in comparison to the Book 1. Book 3: "Chinese Etymology -- Workbook One" (280 pages) which has: Part one: 220 roots and 1,100 G1 words. The students must dissect those 1,100 words the first time with the knowledge of roots only without the concern the meaning of the words. After he learned part two, he must re-dissect those G1 words the second time and tries to read out their innate meanings. Then, he must look up the meaning (the semantic meaning) of the words with a dictionary and compare them with his decoded innate meanings. Then, he must explain the gap between the innate and the semantic (the usage) and the underlying logic of the leap (from the innate to the usage). Part two: 300 sound modules and 250 four-tones. The ways of dissection and decoding of those 300 sound modules are provided, and they are as the examples for student to do the Part one works. My websites are ad-flyers. If all you read about my work are from those websites, you do not know about my work on Chinese Etymology, not even 1/10 of one-percent. Question -- from "sangi39" -- If you're serious about your work regarding Chinese etymology and intend to argue strongly for your ideas then reading opposition ideas is key, ... ... it doesn't seem from your work that you have even entered a full scholarly debate with any other Chinese language etymologists but that you've rather dismissed their work as out-of-date and incorrect by default simply because it opposes your ideas Answer -- The "Book one" was reviewed by over 50 Chinese universities. Over 20 Presidents of those Chinese universities (including the President of Beijing Chinese language university) wrote to me with great praises, and their letters are available at, http://www.chinese-word-roots.org/cw2.htm If Pulleyblank's and Baxter's works are about the interaction of Chinese phonetic and semantic, they cannot be an opposite idea of mine. Over half of the "Book one" talks about that interaction. In "Book one", all issues of that interaction are resolved, no un-answered question. Their work could be the best wonder pill for the issue, but I need it not. Only when a person is ill, he needs doctors and wonder pills. Question -- from "sangi39" -- Chang created 3,000 or so new characters through use of 220 roots, ... I find your work to hold to a similar principle that crops up in archaeology, i.e. that you are projected back onto the past patterns which you have found in the present. By this I mean, you have been able to show a mnemonic method of learning the forms of Chinese characters in their present form and have then gone on to project this mnemonic onto the very creation of the characters using very vague historical evidence to support the idea. To sum up (as I always try to) you seem to be projecting a modern mnemonic regarding the form of Chinese characters onto the actual creation of the characters themselves, Answer -- Are these your statements or statements about me? If they are simply your statements, you, of course, have the right to say whatever you please. If they are statements about me, many times, you put your foot into my mouth and scream about it. I said very clearly in my previous posts, I did not know that how Wang - Chang constructed the Lii set, as there is no historical record about that "process" although the event (the encounter of the Emperor, Wang and Chang) was documented in detail. My "guess" is that Wang came up the idea and constructed a "handful" of examples which was enough to impress the Emperor. Wang "might" be not fully confident about the task of converting all 3,000 small seal characters with his method; so, he declined the invitation of the Emperor. Then, Chang spent 10 years in jail to finish the task. If Chang has the 220 roots together with the rules of interaction of those roots, he could have finished the task in days, not 10 years. After finishing his work, I "think" that he could summarize a system which is the same as or similar to my work, the Chinese Etymology. But, no such record is found. The fact is that Wang - Change constructed the Lii set, and I invented the etymology for the Lii set. They did theirs, and I did mine. For many people, this difference is, seemingly, not important, but it is. For any scholastic work, it is supremely important to point out the lines: I know, I know; and I don't, I don't. If I must make a guess, I must point it out clearly that it is just a guess. In many previous posts of yours, you have put too many "feet" into my mouth and scream about them. Question -- from "sangi39" -- .. then exactly how were the other 4,000-54,000 characters created when Chang worked, essentially, in "secret"? Did their creation occur in a similar way (220 roots) or did each creator have their own method? Answer -- All characters in Big 5 set (the modern Lii set) are followed the ways of the original 3,000 words as examples. How and who did, I don't know, but not with my etymology (I am sure about that). Question -- from "sangi39" -- ... you seem to be talking about the Chinese written language as the basis for the spoken language here. ... since it wouldn't be based on the pronunciation of a natlang but rather human thought. ... Finally, if the Chinese character system were built on 220 roots then it would be the only natural fully developed script used to represent a language (or in this case a group of languages) on the planet to have survived for 3,400 years without, in any way, representing the sounds of the spoken language which it represents. Answer -- These are your big "FEET". Lii set was constructed in 220 B.C. and people spoke many, many years before then. Although the Lii set is a written language, it "encompasses" all phonetics of Chinese language. If the Lii set failed to encompass the verbal language, it could not be of anything, let alone to be a living language for 2,230 years. I don't know what you are talking about. Question -- from "sangi39" -- So, history has shown that fully developed scripts used to write a spoken language are universally at least partly phonetic in some way or another rather than representing the mental processes behind the language, which would obviously fall into the now largely unfavoured Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. ... indicating the Chinese script is dramatically different from other complex scripts and script in general, representing only underlying thought rather than speech and ideas, without looking at those characters in relation to their reconstructed pronunciation at the approximate time of their creation. Answer -- What is the point? My "work" deals with these issues in details. Signature -- PreBabel is the true universal language, it is available at http://www.prebabel.info